PurposeThis paper analyzes procurement negotiators' skills and attributes by considering perceptions of procurement professionals in Tanzania.Design/methodology/approachThis study employed a cross-sectional research design in which procurement professionals' opinions were collected through questionnaires. The study proposed that the skills and attributes of procurement negotiators are necessary for negotiation proceedings, and they were tested through confirmatory factor analysis.FindingsFindings suggest that listening skills, persuasion skills, communication skills and planning skills are all important skills that contribute to overall procurement negotiation skills. Furthermore, trust, flexibility, honesty and emotion are statistically determined to be necessary attributes for procurement negotiators. All of the observed variables were statistically significant (p < 0.001) and contributed positively to explaining the skills and attributes of procurement negotiators.Research limitations/implicationsThe sample included only respondents from a single country. This may affect the generalization of results as there is a variation in institutional regulatory compliance governing public procurement undertakings in different countries. Also, the study did not include the outcome of negotiation proceedings and relied only on opinions collected from the procurement professionals in Tanzania.Practical implicationsThis study's findings provide suggestions for practitioners on the necessary skills and attributes of procurement negotiators that might be well considered when appointing members of negotiation teams for procurement deals.Originality/valueThis paper adds value to the existing literature on the necessary skills and attributes of members of negotiation teams for procurement undertakings in the public sector.

This paper determines the effect of social networks on performance of fresh tomato supply chain in Kilolo District Tanzania using Social Capital Theory and Transaction Cost Economic Theory. Tomato production and marketing has been identified as being important in poverty reduction mainly because it can offer employment and thus income to smallholder farmers and traders. However, smallholder farmers and traders in Kilolo District face high transaction costs in production and marketing of their produce and thus they rely on social networks to reduce transaction costs. The study employed a crosssectional research design. A simple random sampling technique was used to select smallholder tomato farmers while snow ball sampling technique was used to select tomato traders. The sample size consisted of 242 respondents. Semi-structured questionnaires were administered to the respondents. Data were analysed using means, percentages, independent samples Ttests and multiple regression analysis. The study found that membership in socioeconomic groups, network size, tie strength, and network density have significant positive influence on performance of the fresh tomato supply chain in the study area. The study also found that level of education had positive influence on the performance. The main conclusion drawn from this study is that social networks have significant positive influence on performance of the fresh tomato supply chain in the study area. It is recommended that the government should recognize the importance of informal social networks and strengthen the existing social networks.